When I am doing nothing

Friday 31 July 2009

I got a call at about 9.00 to go in to the shop to cover for one of our servers, so I rushed through getting dressed and got out of the place, in my good yellow-and-cream gown, at like 9.30. One good thing about working in a Colonial-themed place is that you don't have to wear makeup! --in fact you shouldn't! Only actresses and harlots (which in the 18th C were pretty much the same thing) wore face paint., you know.

Whilst I was working Jessy went out 'to lunch' with some of her friends here. Mother came with JJ and Lisa and picked me up in the car. When I got back Jessy had left me a text message inviting me to come along... but when I called her she didn't pick up and I realised they were probably seeing HP6 again down at the Beach. So I came up here, got out of my outfit, and went online.

This constituted most of my afternoon then. The sun has been going in and out of clouds all morning and I hadn't decided if I wanted to get dressed just to lie out and get nothing for it. Besides, I'm tan enough! Lisa came up, as naked as I am, and asked if I was going to the beach. But then Mother called her back down. 'No one's going anywhere till after lunch!'

Lisa rolled her eyes and went back down. I descended most of the way and called down, 'Mother! I'm not hungry, so do I have to eat?'

Then her sweet voice came back, from round the corner in the dining room, 'Not if you don't want to, sweetheart. But no unfair snacks later then!'

'Yes, Mother,' I called, and came back up here.

People were chatting and I was too busy with that to do much writing for myself. Lisa came back and promised to go to the beach with me whenever I wanted to. She was, of course, still naked in the house but suggested we could wear our bandanna bikinis (see blog from yesterday). 'When will you want to?' she asked, standing a foot from my elbow as I typed and rocking side-to-side on her heels as she does.

I reached over and pinched her. 'We'll wait till you've settled your stomach first, okay?'

'Okay!' she said, and went back down.

I went down for a banana later (oh, do not ASK what people online thought of that!) and found Mother sitting out on the deck, in her chaise, reading. She was in her good blue-and-black print bikini and looked absolutely gorgeous... as usual. I should remind you all that 'Mother', my stepmother, is 27. She was our nanny till after Mommy died. Lisa and JJ are hers and Jessy and I are Mommy's. Lisa will be 6 in a week. She is as precocious as any child of Mother's could be expected to be, adorable, fiercely brave, sweet-natured, and absolutely enraptured with Jessy who is almost exactly 10 years older. This afternoon little JJ, who is 3-1/2, was arranging trucks and blocks all over the deck. He's never naked-- he says it is for girls and is probably getting protective over his maleness anyway-- and was in a cute little bikini swimsuit like Daddy wears in the pool. And Lisa was naked, both of them slathered heavily in SPF 60 and playing on our nice big white-painted cedar deck that extends from the front door and the parlour to the dunes. I thought it was charming and cute that the two of them had both Barbies and trucks all over the deck, playing somewhat separately and yet sometimes together in the sun. Daddy strung a 'safety net' under the lower railing mainly to keep dolls and trucks from going overboard. It's green and tends to become opaque in bright sunlight, so Lisa crawling round the deck with JJ was pretty much safe from prying eyes on the street, which gives access to the beach, or from the walkway leading over the dunes that's between our house and the one we rent out next door.

Of course I only peered out the front door (which faces the dune, not the street) from behind the screen door. Mother turned her head and waved back at me. 'I'm not coming out,' I said.

'I should hope not,' she smiled.

'Just wanted to see what you're all doing.'

'They're kind of in the middle of this,' Mother said.

Lisa stood up and padded over to me then. 'Are you coming out to play?'

I smiled. 'Not like I am sweetie!'

She shrugged and then smiled shyly at me. 'Okay,' she said-- recognising that older girls have issues with playing outside naked on a deck visible to the public that younger girls do not. I really believe she would have expected Jessy to join her.

'We'll go for a walk later, okay?'

She nodded and ran right back to the Barbies. I went back up stairs.

Finally round 2.30 I had not heard from Jessy and decided to go out. I put on the pale-blue bandanna bikini, which I had not worn outside yet, and a plain white tanktop and descended to the deck again. 'Are we going out?" Lisa asked, rushing up.

I caught her; her skin was drying and she'd need more SPF 60. 'You need to go up and get your suit,' I said. 'And a top too.'

She ran off for the stairs. 'Can I come too?' JJ asked, rushing up too.

I looked at Mother. 'Do you mind if I take them both? If you want to read....'

'I'll be fine, sweetheart. Go and have fun.'

Lisa brought down the bandanna-bikini, one of the ones Jessy and I made for ourselves that didn't work and got altered for someone smaller, and I sat her on a dining-room chair and tied it up at her hips for her. JJ went to the potty and emerged, and I got them both well coated in sunblock-- as well as myself-- and we descended to the yard and went under the deck to the walkway over the dune. On the beach, which had got hot, we ran down to the water's edge and then wandered off down to the next jetty, about three and a half blocks. We met some people we know, said hello to some new people, got slightly wet-- well, JJ got soaked when he slid in the sand and was overwhelmed by an anklesnapper-- and got some exercise. When I am with our little ones I don't feel a need to be Miss Popular Young Woman In A Swimsuit On The Beach, you know. I feel like a nanny myself sometimes. And I like it. It is really true what Daddy says, that being around children on the beach and in the ocean makes you feel younger. I suppose that is why he has made a lifetime's career about of being youthful and fun and interesting and entertaining!

When we got back Jessy and her friends had come. At once Jessy pointed out to them that I was wearing one of our bandanna-bikini creations. 'That's a bandanna?' her friend Scotia said in amazement.

I giggled, and turned round then. 'Actually it's two,' I said.

'Oh my God!' they all seemed to say at once. 'And you wore that out?'

I shrugged, smiling somewhat proudly now. 'Of course.'

'It was kind of Janine's idea,' Jessy said. 'I have two of them too.'

'And you made that?'

'But it's only cotton!'

'And you wore it to go out?'

They remained amazed. So I have gone from feeling lonely and left-out (and very nearly bored!) to being a role model for girls again. This is the kind of day I like!

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